Sixteen Consistent Characteristics of Greatness

I read a blog post yesterday that really caught my attention.  It highlighted a list created by Don Yaeger, former editor of Sports Illustrated.  Don has put together a list of "Sixteen Consistent Characteristics of Greatness".  While we all aspire to be great, Don has hit on traits that separate the great from everyone else.

I read this list and thought of people I admire.  It is the best list of attributes of successful entrepreneurs, athletes and business executives I have ever read.  I thought I would share the complete list with you here... it is well worth the read.  Maybe you see some of these traits in yourself or someone in your life...

Sixteen Consistent Characteristics of Greatness

How they think:

1. It’s personal
They hate to lose more than they love to win. People that aspire to greatness know that defeat just isn’t an option.

2. Rubbing elbows
They understand the value of association. I always say that we become the people that surround us. Those of us who are aspiring to greatness, it is our job to rub elbows with the right people and to learn what makes them successful and what keeps them going. In turn, it is up to them to help us better ourselves. And if you can’t change the people around you, then choose different people to be around. Think about it.

3. Believe
They have faith in a higher power. It is proven that a strong spiritual commitment, and a strong belief in faith is linked to a positive outcome. In our current economic state, always remember the power of a positive mind-set and the importance of belief in beating the impossible.

4. Contagious enthusiasm
They are positive thinkers… They are enthusiastic… and that enthusiasm rubs off. When you’re trying to work through your challenge-professional or personal – do so with the belief that the best is yet to come. Stay positive.

How they prepare:

5. Hope for the best but…
They prepare for all possibilities before they step on the field. I am an eternal optimist. But I am also a realist. When I enter into any situation, I am excited about the possibilities it may bring. But I also know that there are a lot of variables beyond my control. So I contingency-plan.

6. What off-season?
They are always working towards the next game… The goal is what’s ahead, and there’s always something ahead. if you visualize where you want to be and work backwards from there, you can always be moving the ball forward.

7. Visualize victory
They see victory before the game begins. Positive visualization is a proven ingredient of a successful outcome.

8. Inner fire
They use adversity as fuel.One thing in life is certain… none of us gets through without adversity. What matters is that we find the strength to work through it. When we are knocked down, it may take hours, days, weeks, or months, but we need to get back up. For me, I’m at the point where challenging situations invigorate me. I’m mentally tough enough to embrace the adversity heading my way, overcome it, and learn from it.

How they work:

9. Ice in their veins
They are risk-takers and don’t fear making a mistake. Failure is one of our greatest teachers. I’m amazed at how much risk-tolerance I have acquired. But it’s the one component that enables me to keep growing. If I stopped to think about how much I have on the line, I would be paralyzed.

“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career,” NBA legend Michael Jordan, who was known for his late-game heroics in addition to six national titles, once said. “I’ve lost almost 300 games – 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life, and that is why I succeed.”

10. When all else fails
They know how – and when – to adjust their game plan. Flexibility and adaptability is essential to survival. I wrote a previous column on this exact topic… the ability to shift when everything around you is shifting too.

11. Ultimate teammate
They will assume whatever role is necessary for the team to win. Individual accomplishments are important, but the sum is always greater in value than the individual parts. How much do you step up to help those around you? When others around you thrive, you thrive as well.

12. Not just about the Benjamins
They don’t play just for the money. It’s never about the money. And if it is, it’s about the wrong thing. The money will come if you follow your passion… if you become a part of something bigger than yourself. As a business owner, I view our profits as a catalyst to build a greater organization.

How they live:

13. Do unto others
They know character is defined by how they treat those who cannot help them. One of the greatest sources of satisfaction is helping others, from a truly altruistic standpoint. We all have something to give… our time, our experiences, our compassion.

14. When no one is watching
They are comfortable in the mirror… they live their life with integrity. I always tell my kids… “What matters is not what you do when everyone is watching. What matters is what you do when no one is watching.” Your ultimate accountability has to be to yourself.

15. When everyone is watching
They embrace the idea of being a role model. As leaders, we have an obligation to promote positive leadership, and demonstrate the positive influence we can have on others. Our actions shape those coming behind us.

16. Records are made to be broken
They know their legacy isn’t what they did on the field. They are well-rounded. A legacy isn’t what you took from this world. A legacy is what you leave behind.

Now go out and accomplish something!

Tom Cuthbert

"The World is a Complicated Place, Hobbes"

I really miss Calvin and Hobbes.  For years I enjoyed reading them to my son and laughing together.  Today the cartoonist, Bill Watterson is retired and my son is reading Fantasy Football stats!

Calvin represented the boy in all of us.  He was inquisitive, fearless (to a point) and adventurous.  I enjoyed his imagination and certainly saw some of me in Calvin, and Calvin in my son.

Hobbes is the quintessential calming influence.  The imaginary tiger was both a friend and counselor.  Together they made a great team and got into (and out of) more trouble than I ever did!

The comic below is one of my favorites.  Often times, Calvin and Hobbes dealt with 'big picture' issues in a simple way.  Live life for a few years and you realize the world is a complicated place.  There are definitely days when I would have loved to take Hobbes advice and just "take a nap in a tree and wait for dinner."



I hope this holiday season your world can be uncomplicated.  Enjoy the little things and appreciate the blessings of life.  While the world may not be as simple as black and white, it is an awesome place when filled with the color of life.

My favorite quote is by Ronald Reagan, "Enjoy life, it's ungrateful not to." Indeed.

Tom Cuthbert

The LeBron Switch is Not About the Number

LeBron James is arguably the best player under 30 in the NBA, I don't think there is much debate.  So when he announced recently that "out of respect for Michael Jordan" he was going to wear the number 6 next year, there were a few eyebrows raised. There are currently 11 other players in the NBA who sport MJ's digits.  (Most notably Marcus Camby and Kevin Martin, least notably Stephen Graham and Jodie Meeks).  So why is LeBron so concerned about the number?  I think it's because he is already thinking of a change of scenery next year and a little spiffing up for the ole brand.

Sure there are huge marketing benefits for changing numbers. You may recall Kobe going from 8 to 24 a few years ago.  That switch pushed him past LeBron in jersey sales.  But in this case, I don't think LeBron is worried about selling gear in the near future.  And with all due respect to both messieurs James and Jordan, it's not about honoring MJ.  If it were, LeBron would realize that Bill Russell, a #6, (11 championships to Jordan's 6) should be honored as well.

I like LeBron and think he is great for the NBA.  But let's get real, changing numbers is not about honoring anyone. It's about positioning for next year and marketing.  LeBron is a brand, and every once and awhile, brands need to be freshened up.  So let's not hide the fact that LeBron is a savvy marketer as well as an amazing athlete.

One other note... I have decided to change my name in honor of Tom Landry (or maybe Tom Cruise, or Tom's Shoes, or TomTom GPS...).  I'm taking nominations for a new name to begin wearing next year.  It needs to meet two critical criteria... first honor someone famous (but not too famous) and secondly, look good on a jersey :)

FKA Tom Cuthbert

Blogging About Blogs

This week, I'll be attending Blogworld in Las Vegas for the first time.  I'm looking forward to the show and interested in learning about the world of blogging and social media in general.  The conference features thought leaders, bloggers and participants from an industry that is still in it's infancy.  For years I have been fascinated with the blogging phenomenon.  Blogs have connected people, spread ideas and information, created 'micro-celebrities' and contributed to the downfall of the newspaper industry.

The term 'blog' is a contraction of 'weblog', first coined by Jorn Barger in 1997 then turned into just 'blog' in 1999.  Today blogs are part of everyday life and a fairly large industry in and of itself.  This week at Blogworld, I plan to learn about that industry and am specifically interested in the sports aspect of blogging.  If you are in this area and will be at Blogworld, I'd love to connect!

I have been blogging now for almost two years on everything from Google to Rascal Flatts.  Much of my focus has been on click fraud and online advertising.  I'm not interested in making money off my personal blog, only sharing ideas, connecting with interesting people and ranting about random topics.  However, blogs have definitely been a vehicle for Click Forensics to share information and reach new customers.

Finding a blog that interests you is easy.  Sites like Technorati allow you to search by topic and find your interests.  (For example my love of the NBA returns these results)  There are several blogs I read everyday including the Wall St. Journal, Bleacher Report, Silicon Alley Insider and ChrisBrogan.com.

Nowadays, setting up a blog could not be easier.  Sites like Wordpress, LiveJournal, Blogger.com and Typepad.  The WSJ Blog recently had a post called "To Blog or Not?".  If you have something to say I encourage you to blog!  It can be therapeutic, entertaining, engaging and even profitable.  Jump in, speak out and blog away...

Tom Cuthbert

Beware the “Bahama” Botnet

By Steve O'Brien, Click Forensics

Just when you thought the fraudsters couldn’t get any more sophisticated … they surprise you.  Click Forensics researchers have recently discovered one of the most advanced sources of click fraud we’ve seen.  We’ve named it the “Bahama botnet” because when first discovered it was redirecting traffic through 200,000 parked domain sites located in the Bahamas.  It has since been reprogrammed to redirect through other intermediate sites hosted in Amsterdam, the U.K., and even San Jose, CA, but the Bahama name stuck.

Interestingly, the Bahama botnet appears to be closely related to the recent spate of “scareware” attacks, such as the one perpetrated against The New York Times digital site just a few days ago, reported by ComputerWorld.  Visitors to the NYTimes.com site were greeted with a pop-up informing them their computer was infected and directed to an authentic-looking site where they could install a program called Personal Antivirus.  Users duped into purchasing this phony software were then infected with a Trojan that gave control of their computer to an unknown third party that we now know to be part of a gang in the Ukraine.

We believe the Bahama botnet is controlled by this same gang, or their neighbors down the street.  More info about the “Ukranian fan club” can be found in Dancho Danchev’s excellent security blog.  We’re pretty sure the Bahama botnet is related to the Ukranian fan club and the NYTimes.com scareware because they each phone back to a bogus “Windows protection” domain located on the same IP address.

These sources were originally identified by the Black Hat community, but we believe Click Forensics is the first to discover the breadth and depth of click fraud being perpetrated by the botnets it controls.  And the botnet is incredibly insidious.

The video below shows the botnet in action, caught on film and narrated by Click Forensic’s own Matt Graham, the infected machine will exhibit some really funky behavior.  Clicks on organic search results are redirected through a series of parked domains across a number of top-tier ad providers (search engines and ad networks), eventually arriving at an advertiser unrelated to the original query.  The user is momentarily confused, but likely just performs the search again, this time with easy success.



What makes the botnet so insidious is that it operates intermittently so that the user doesn’t really know that anything is wrong.  Additionally, it can operate independently of the user because the authors appear to be building a large database of authentically user-generated search queries.

[caption id="attachment_718" align="alignright" width="500" caption="Seemingly random clicks discovered through advanced pattern detection"][/caption]

And because the queries come from many different machines (IPs) across a broad segment of the Internet population, it is very difficult to find and identify these clicks as fraudulent.  But these auto-generated clicks were not able to disguise themselves well enough to escape Click Forensics anomaly detection algorithms.  Additionally, large amounts of non-converting clicks were spotted in the data we receive from advertisers.  From there, our team was able to hone in on the source of the Bahama botnet.

The Doctors Are ‘In’

In February of 2006, Click Forensics was just getting off the ground.  We recognized the problem of click fraud was a big problem and that building a solution would be tough technical challenge.

[caption id="attachment_709" align="alignright" width="248" caption="Dr. Tuzhilin with the Click Forensics founding team in 2006"][/caption]

We decided to bring in an expert in the field of data mining and anomaly detection in click stream analysis.  That expert was Dr. Alex Tuzhilin.  Alex spent the day with us at our offices in San Antonio and provided us a road map for the evolution of our approach to identifying invalid traffic.  His contribution to us at that point was essential and provided tremendous insight.  After reviewing our approach he commented,

"Click Forensics has good data and this is a source of their advantage over the search engines. My role is to work with them to refine the scoring methodology to improve accuracy. Their approach is to incorporate as much data as possible to improve accuracy. The search providers simply don't have enough data to have the most accurate approach."

Shortly after Alex visit to Texas, I received a call from the lead attorney representing Lane’s Gifts in their lawsuit against Google.  He said, “Tom, I just hired your Ph.D!”  He told me that the judge in that case had mandated that an outside consultant review Google’s click fraud detection methods and publish paper on the efficacy.  Alex spent many weeks at Google and wrote an insightful paper detailing their approach, ultimately describing it as “reasonable”.  The Lane’s Gift case was settled and Alex returned to his role as a professor at NYU.

Today we are thrilled to announce that Dr. Tuzhilin has joined the Click Forensics Advisory Board.  Few individuals have had more real-world and academic experience in the measurement of online traffic quality and its effect on advertisers.  His work has helped move the industry toward standards and cooperation.  After visiting us in Austin a few weeks ago and meeting with our technology team, Alex said,

“Having firsthand experience reviewing the state of the art in ad network traffic management, I was impressed with the level of technical sophistication the team exhibits and I was impressed with the directions they are going, Click Forensics has played a leadership role in helping the online advertising community to monitor quality of clicks on ads, including identification of invalid clicks. I look forward to continuing to work with the team.”

In additional to Dr. Tuzhilin, we have also added Dr. William Wright, the Chief Scientist at Paypal.  Dr. Wright, a Ph.D. in cognitive science, is an artificial intelligence expert who has built numerous analytical and predictive systems over the past twenty years, including the Falcon Credit Card Fraud Detection System at HNC, the Advanced Fraud Screen system at CyberSource, and numerous adversarial modeling systems for the U.S. military.  After spending time with our team, William concluded,

“Click Forensics has built a strong team of developers using very advanced machine learning and data mining techniques to detect fraud and measure traffic quality, they are pioneering a new area of fraud detection and I’m finding it satisfying to work closely with them on leveraging lessons from my past experience combating credit card and banking fraud.”

One out of every five employees at Click Forensics hold a Ph.D.  Adding the expertise of Alex and William dramatically enhances our ability to meet our goal of providing the state of the art approach to traffic quality management.  I appreciate their contributions and look forward to benefiting from their knowledge in the future.

Tom Cuthbert

Search Engine Strategies SJC Recap

While attendance at SES San Jose was definitely down this year, it was still a great show.  I enjoyed meeting people at our booth and appreciated the hard work of our team pulling that all together.  We met a lot of interesting folks and enjoyed hearing feedback on new Click Forensics dashboard.

The big hit, of course, were the "Stress Einstein" squishys! Who wouldn't want of these guys!  They reminded me of the bobble-heads in "Night at the Museum 2" :)

I also enjoyed participating in a session titled, "Ads in a Quality Score World".   Mike Grehan moderated the panel and both Yahoo (Tomaso Pozzi) and Google (Jonathan Alferness) participated.  WebProNews covered the session and wrote a nice recap.  My presentation is below.

Click to close

Speaker Profile

[slideshare id=1858957&doc=ses0809-090813202600-phpapp01]

The other highlight of the week for me was our Click Quality Council dinner.  We had of 25 executives from ad networks, publishers, advertisers and search engines join us for a great dinner of conversation, networking and fun!

The conversation is always interesting when you have people representing all corners of the online advertising ecosystem.  It was the third year we have hosted the CQC dinner in San Jose and our 13th since the Council was formed in 2006.

Tom Cuthbert

Building on a Foundation of Success: IAB Guidelines

Over the past week four major players in the online media space have announced accreditation to the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Click Measurement Guidelines.  This list includes Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft and Business.com.  I wanted to take a moment and explore why you should care about this development and what accreditation means for advertisers.

The IAB is a publisher-focused organization that has led the process to develop click measurement guidelines.  The task force is made up of thirty or so companies representing the online advertising community.  Click Forensics has been a member since day one and participated in every step of the process.

There are three main benefits for advertisers and conversely, three concerns advertisers need to keep in mind associated with the entire process.  First, the benefits;

IAB Accreditation Represents a Commitment
The process to become accredited to the IAB guidelines is time consuming and certainly not free.  At Click Forensics, we have first hand knowledge of this and can assure you that any company that takes time and spends the money to become accredited is committed to their customers.  The level of detail the auditors go in to is amazing.  Our community is fortunate to have auditors that have demonstrated a deep commitment to both the development of the process and the implementation of the guidelines.

IAB Accreditation Demonstrates Leadership
The IAB established a gating period to allow member companies and others to become accredited to the guidelines.  The companies mentioned above were the first to announce compliance.  This is important because it represents a sense of urgency among these four that enhances the urgency for others.  As an advertiser, you should reward these leaders with business.  They were first out of the gate and in my book that demonstrates leadership.

IAB Accreditation Means Better Quality Traffic
The IAB Guidelines are a lengthy narrative of “best practices” and rules in delivering quality traffic to advertisers.  While it is not intended to be a complete list, it serves as a firm foundation and includes practical steps to help ensure advertisers get what they pay for.  By working with an accredited ad provider, advertisers will be assured that the clicks they are buying have met the guidelines established by the industry.  This is a good thing and an excellent first step.

While we applaud the efforts of the IAB, Media Rating Council and member companies who participated in this process, there are things advertisers need to keep in mind.  There was a great deal of discussion and debate during the nearly three years of meetings it took to develop these guidelines.  In that process, there were a lot of valuable and important items that fell to the floor.  This is a good start, not a perfect process.  Keep in mind the following;

IAB Accreditation is a “Moment in Time” Process
The process for an ad provider to become accredited is a long one.  The auditor is invited in for a pre-assessment then the actual audit begins.  At the end of the process accreditation is awarded.  The problem is there is no mechanism for ongoing compliance.  When we buy gas at the gas station there is a meter that is routinely calibrated to ensure that when we fill our tank with 20 gallons of gasoline, we get 20 gallons.  This approach is not taken nor addressed in the guidelines.  While an annual audit is suggested in the guidelines, it is still important for advertisers to be monitoring their campaigns and holding the ad providers feet to the fire for every click.

IAB Accreditation Does Not Cover Everything
The 27 page Guideline document is quite comprehensive.  Our task force worked hard to ensure that both the guidelines are made clear and that the standard for measurement is defined.  However, when you consider that the dominant constituency in this process was multibillion-dollar ad providers, you might imagine not everything met their liking.  A few examples of chaff that hit the threshing room floor included:

Click ID – Each click should have a unique identifier so investigations can be “apples to apples”
Persistent Cookie – It’s important that ad providers can identify unique visitors to ensure they are billed for only once.
Standards for Investigation – Advertisers deserve to feel confident that they get what they pay for.  By setting an investigation format and agreeing to a timeline, ad providers can build trust with customers.

IAB Accreditation is a Roadmap
There is a Japanese proverb that says, “Beginning is easy and continuing is hard”.  There is truth in this as it relates to the guidelines.  We have begun the process.  We have released guidelines that will make the world of online advertising a better place.  Now we should look to leadership to take the next step and continue what we have begun.  The current guidelines will serve as a roadmap to the future standards.  We need to examine the items removed, listen to the community and think of better ways to ensure advertisers get what they pay for in the future.  The roadmap has been built.  Now we need to move on.

In January of 2006 as Click Forensics was just beginning as a company, I wrote the following challenge to our industry:

“Define standards for what an unwanted click looks like. We believe that there are certain characteristics or attributes that are common to a large percentage of click fraud. We are working with publishers and advertisers to agree on common ground and work together to expose it. Once this is developed it should be published so that the entire community can benefit from it.”

Today, over three years later, we have the cooperation of community leaders, the foundation of technical standards and the desire to continue to improve on what we have built.  I invite you, to join us as we build a future of ongoing growth and improving effectiveness by enhancing the process of online advertising.  I can assure you that both the Click Quality Council and Click Forensics will continue to support the work of the IAB and other industry organizations to work together to make our community a better place.  Let's not stop with the foundation.

Tom Cuthbert

Scareware… the Next Internet Ripoff

From spyware to bots to viruses and other unimaginable hazards… the web can be a scary place.  As far back as Prodigy in the early days of the online world, scams have been a part of the party.  The Internet is simply a new way for the bad guys to rip off unsuspecting consumers.  The key difference though is that the reach is enormous and the damage can spread to more people, more quickly than ever before.

Enter scareware, new way to trick unsuspecting consumers into parting with their money.  USA Today recently had an article about the tricks and tactics used to perpetrate this latest rip off.  Unfortunately, online advertising has become an accomplice to the crime.

Scareware is worthless software that allegedly removes viruses from your computer.  Anyone who has surfed the web knows how easy it can be to become infected with a virus.  The damage to the users computer is often measured in slowed performance, unwanted clicking and potentially even more nefarious things like key logging and password swiping.  Now, the bad guys are selling “scareware” to solve a problem that may not actually exist.

The first such program was called “SpySheriff,” built by a team of cyber crooks from Russia.  The Anti-Phishing Working Group recently reported that scareware infections rose 48% in the second half of 2008.  The growth is tied to the ease of distribution and weaknesses in online advertising and the web in general.

There are several ways these fake products are being distributed.  Phony pages are created using hot search key words such as “American Idol” or “iPhone” and drive the unsuspecting consumer to the infected page.  Recently the Facebook email scam was used to send people to a page by promoting things like “best video.”  Since these emails came from your friends, millions clicked.  Twitter has become a vehicle for distribution. Phony Twitter accounts are created and enticing titles of posts encourage people to click.

Additionally, the bad guys are simply buying display or search ads.  They rotate in infected pages to the landing page.  It is virtually impossible for an ad provider to scan every ad impression and linking page.  This loophole creates an opportunity for the bad guys to drive significant traffic to infected pages at a very low cost.  Microsoft reported finding 4.4M installations of one such program, so the scale is enormous.  Do the math… at $49 or $79, that is big business.

Once someone lands on the page, getting off is nearly impossible.  Immediately upon landing, a “system scan” begins.  The results are, of course, showing that your computer is infected with a number of viruses.  Conveniently you can buy the product at that point and they take your money and run.  If you try to move away from the page, or cancel, an endless number of scans take over your screen.  Essentially, users must “control/alt/delete” their way out or restart.

The danger in this scam is not limited to monetary damage to the consumer.  These type of pages and methods to attract clicks are the same methods used to install spyware, malware and perpetrate click fraud.  To their credit, USA Today has done a good job over the last few years of highlighting the dangers of the web to the average consumer.

The FTC is cracking down.  They have identified products like WinFixer, DriveCleaner and XP AntiVirus as worthless and they are going after the owners.  The problem is that like the click fraud crooks, these guys are in remote locations and move their servers often. Tracking them is a full time job and extremely difficult.  The search engines are trying to help as well.  Bing has a neat feature that highlights “at risk” url’s.  Yahoo has similar product built with McAfee.

Trust is what keeps consumers clicking on ads.  Without stepped up industry efforts from organizations, like the Anti Phishing Working Groups and others, trust could be diminished.  Like click fraud, scareware is damaging trust.  It takes a community effort to stay after the problem and build solutions to take the scare out of the internet.

Tom Cuthbert

Welcome Bing!

Let's face it, Google needs a competitor.  Microsoft is ready to give them a run for their money (and it's a lot of money). Last night, here in Seattle, Microsoft lit up the Space Needle to celebrate the launch of Bing.  Time will tell how big an impact Bing will have in search, but history may be on the Microsoft's side.

[caption id="attachment_647" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Browser Wars"][/caption]

As recently as 1997, Netscape had a 80%+ share of the browser market.  Wikipedia recalls the IE 4 release in October of '97..."The release party in San Francisco featured a ten-foot-tall letter "e" logo. Netscape employees showing up to work the following morning found that giant logo on their front lawn, with a sign attached which read "From the IE team." The message also read "We Love You."

By 2002, Microsoft had a 96% share.

As we say in the sports business, "Don't sleep on Microsoft".

[brightcove vid=25062206001&exp=1543292789&w=486&h=412]

Sure there will be lots of head to head comparisons between Google and Bing.  But so far, I'm impressed...

Wondering what Google has on their front lawn this morning :)

Tom Cuthbert

AOL... I Finally Got One Right!

It was January of 2000 and I was in my usual Tuesday morning breakfast group with my friends at Jim's.  We spent time talking about life, family and business.  My friends Matt and Shawn were far wiser than I when it came to business and technology (successful tech entrprenuer and Harvard MBA, respectively).  I was still learning the tech space and was just months away from co-founding my first tech company.  Despite my poor track record (I had recently bought stock in Pancho's Mexican Buffet.... don't laugh!) and lack of experience, I saw this disaster coming.

From the early days of the internet, I was there. (You may remember me as 635287874@prodigy.net)  I had an AOL account even before those CD's started showing up at the checkout line at 7-Eleven.  I didn't know much, but I did know that marrying a red hot new technology company with an old school media firm was a bad idea.  It couldn't work and it didn't work. When the AOL-Time Warner merger was announced in January 2000, the combined market capitalization was $280 billion. Today it is $28B.

So here we are, eight years and billions of dollars in lost shareholder value later.  Now what?  First of all, the spinout makes perfect sense.  It will allow Armstrong and the gang to attempt to rebuild a once proud company into something at least relevant.  It also positions AOL to be a new media company by finding creative ways to leverage the assets (audience) into profit.  I saw the plan and I think it makes sense...

Silicon Alley describes the heart of the plan as making AOL more "Google-y".  There is white space below Google.  They own a ridiculous share of the search market and someone will take away market share over the next few years.  Add to that that online advertising continues to grow while traditional media implodes and poof, you have a market opportunity.  AOL is uniquely positioned to play in this space if they fully leverage their assets including ADTECH, Platform A and others.

Remember when you went to America Online, errr... I mean AOL, to read content?  They have audience, content and connecting the dots means revenue growth.  I am pulling for them now, in 2000 I was not.  The strategy then was to try and retain the "walled garden" approach and milk dial up income for as long as possible.... bad idea.

Good luck Tim, you'll need it.  But you have a shot, and that puts you well ahead of your friends back in 2000.

Tom Cuthbert

The Buzz on Click Fraud

The New York Times ran a feature article this week on click fraud.  Why you ask?  Because, like spam, click fraud is still a big problem for advertisers. The article pointed out that as the economy tilts downward, advertisers cannot afford to waste dollars. This is a good news, bad news scenario for online advertising.

The good news is that online advertising is highly measurable.  Large advertisers that traditionally have been offline are now shifting dollars online.  This fact has contributed to online advertising continuing to grow as traditional media is in decline.

The bad news however, is that this window of opportunity is narrow.  The online advertising community must embrace measurability and enhance trust to gain share of spend from the big guys. 

There was a significant event this week that helped in that effort.  The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) released from draft the Click Measurement Guidelines.  This document, three years in the making, is a great start for our community to come together around standards and enhance trust. Dozens of ad providers are busily working with third party audit firms to become accredited to the new guidelines.  Advertisers will have a way to gauge the level of commitment from ad provides when this list is made public.

Click Forensics was proud to represent advertisers in this process.  In fact, we were the only traffic quality management firm to participate and were quoted in the press release from the IAB.  Many thanks are in order for the 38 members of the working group for a job well done.

Now, we find ourselves at the beginning.  An opportunity exists to build on the foundation laid by the IAB member companies.  Click fraud is going to be a problem for a long time to come.  Progress is being made.  But in order to re-accelerate the growth of online advertising we need more than standards.  We need a community effort to work together to ensure advertisers have confidence that they get what they pay for.  Articles raise awareness, documents create a process and awareness builds urgency.  But ultimately it will take the effort of everyone in the community to get to the day where trust is commonplace and online advertising becomes the marvelous, measurable media it can be.  We look forward to continuing our efforts toward that goal.

Tom Cuthbert

Why the Wall St. Journal Rocks

Recently, I've been griping about my local paper and newspapers in general.  The industry is in turmoil and changing rapidly.  One big change will be the way the paper will be read in the future.  Today's announcement about the Kindle DX will make it easier for people like me to eventually switch to a digital reader.  I like this idea and I cannot imagine how newspapers today, in their current form, will survive, except for one...  the Wall St. Journal.

I have been an avid Journal reader for years.  The paper has changed for the better in recent years and is setting the pace for an industry in transition.  In fact, of all major newspapers in this country, the Wall St. Journal was the only one to INCREASE paid subscribers in the last month.  While an entire industry cuts content, moves online or folds all-together how can it be that the Journal grows?  

There have been several recent changes that I believe have enhanced the reading experience, broadened appeal and made the paper more useful.  That list includes:

• Added sports coverage


• Adjusted the physical size of the paper


• Enhanced the paid online version


• Launched an iPhone app


• Produce excellent podcasts and vidcasts


• Broadened appeal with health, tech and travel


• Reformatted the front page for easy scanning

But beyond these enhancements, fundamentally the I enjoy the Journal for three reasons.  First, the perspective is conservative yet thoughtful.  The OpEd page is engaging and thought provoking.  The editorial page in my local paper has become predictable and mundane.  Any column worth reading was syndicated from another paper.  There are essentially no independent thinkers or interesting writers.  While I don't always agree with Peggy Noonan, Kim Strassel or William McGurn, I do respect their perspective. 

Secondly, the information I read in the Journal or hear on their podcasts is relevant to me.  Walt Mossberg and Katie Boehret are consistently exceptional with product reviews and insights.  The company coverage is great and news stories are engaging.  From travel to tech and health to book and wine reviews, it fits my lifestyle.

Finally the Journal entertains me in an intelligent way.  Each day there is a story on the front page that delves into topics ranging from Bollywood to windmills.  I'm a sucker for Pepper and Salt, the funny cartoon (my recent favorite at left).  The writing style is accurate when needed and relaxed when appropriate.  I also find the podcast with Gordon Deal to be a great compliment to the paper.

So as newspaper executives across the country (and here in my hometown) are scratching their heads try to figure out why they are sinking, they should pick up a copy of the Journal.  I do... everyday.

Tom Cuthbert

Good News… Online Will Win!

A few weeks ago I spoke at the Search Engine Strategies conference in New York. I was struck at the conference that people in our industry had their heads down. I recognize the economy is tough and that jobs can be hard to find and keep. But guess what… online advertising will win!

Like you, I have friends in traditional media. Newspapers and print in general have been hammered. Radio and outdoor is fading and television is showing signs of weakness. The dollars are shifting to online and with good reason. In my preparation for the presentation (which can be found here) I spoke to senior executives at digital agencies and leading online advertisers. While the title of my presentation was, “Measurement Matters” the focus was on change.

There is no doubt that the world of online advertising is at a crossroads. According to a recent IBM survey, over 60% of all advertisers are cutting budgets… 80% of them are trimming more than 15% of the spending. This urgency was clear in this quote from the report,

“Advertisers are aggressively shifting their spend to even more interactive, measurable formats, as providers struggle to move "beyond advertising" to new forms of communication that combine the ROI characteristics of direct marketing with the brand characteristics of traditional advertising.”

The tone I heard when speaking to advertisers and agencies was consistent… “Now more than ever, we need to be sure we get what we pay for”. Jobs are on the line, performance is not optional and measurement matters.

Where can advertisers get better value and solid analytics for performance advertising? Online of course! I’ve identified five specific attitudes that need to be addressed to fully capitalize on the shifting dollars…

1) Stand on our strengths – Online advertising is measureable, has a growing reach and new and creative ways to deliver meaningful ad impressions to consumers. These are meaningful strengths that need to be communicated.
2) Tout the targeting –Saying that television advertising can target is like saying you can tell what kind of fish are in the water from the boat. Targeting (behavioral, demographic and geographic) is a strong suit of online advertising that is unmatched in traditional advertising.
3) Get creative with compensation - Advertisers need to (and will) hold agencies feet to the fire. Agencies that embrace this and are open to new models of compensation, will win.
4) Measure, measure and measure – Performance standards, benchmarking and goals are critical for success. The good news is that online holds that as a competitive advantage over traditional media. More tools are available to help with this and insight into campaigns makes a major difference in success.
5) Look beyond the “Big Two” – Yahoo and Google hold a lot of the cards when it comes to online. However, there is a growing community of quality ad networks and publishers that can deliver strong results. I’ll talk more about how to find them in a future post.

My presentation included the chart below highlighting a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis I did on our space.



The current economic conditions create an opportunity for those of us in the digital world. Now is not the time to complain… it is the time to aggressively promote the benefits that online holds over traditional media.

Tom Cuthbert

The Future of Newspapers

A few weeks ago I noticed that the Business section was missing form my Sunday paper.  I vented by posting a tweet and followed up by sending an email to the business editor of the paper.  After a few days I received a well written reply. It stated, 

Unfortunately, we have discontinued the Sunday and Monday Business sections. We are not happy about it, but at the end of the day it was an action that had to be taken for the good of the institution. I am sure you are aware that we are on the cusp of technological, cultural and generational forces that are reshaping the information landscape. Add to that the most corrosive financial environment since the Great Depression and you can see the perfect storm that has slammed into the traditional business model for the general circulation newspaper.

First of all, I appreciate him taking time to respond.  I enjoy reading actual newspapers and read several of them every day.  I recognize that the industry is changing and in deep turmoil, but it seems to me there are lots of other areas to cut besides the Business section.  Maybe I'm not a typical reader since my favorite publication is the Wall St. Journal.      

My response was, in part...

Thank you for writing me back.  I recognize the difficulties all print publications have as people change habits to online.  I have followed the Seattle PI switch with interest and you are right, it is a changing world.  I know you guys are in a tough spot.  I certainly don't have the answers.  I can tell you as a technology person in this community I rely on your paper to keep me informed.  I will also tell you that  dropping Sunday and Monday will cause me to consider my subscription.    I encourage you to think of ways to enhance the coverage, more deeply engage readers, pull in more regional information and create new ways to rebuild, not retrench.  (Twitter and other social media outlets may hold some answers)

So what is the future for papers like mine?  Henry Blodget wrote and interesting article titled, "Our Plan to Fix the New York Times".  In it he discusses several options for papers.  In the end, the business model is flawed given the access to data that people have.  Blogs, micro papers and online publications are pulling readership away from print.  Classified ads are less effective than ever now that they compete with Craigslist and EBay.  Even searching for homes has moved from print to Zillow and other online sites.

At the end of the day I do believe I predicted the future correctly when I wrote, 'Future conversation with my son (circa 2034) "Really Pop?  Someone actually 'threw' a PAPER copy of the news on our driveway?  No way!".  

Too bad, but that is the direction we are heading.

Tom Cuthbert

SES New York 2009

I attended the Search Engine Strategies conference in New York this week.  It was a very different show than last year.  The crowds were down, keynotes were less engaging and more people that ever are dressing up.  

One other notable change, there was no click fraud panel.  It was just a year ago that the Search Engine Watch said the top story coming out of SES Day 1 was "Yahoo cozies up its click fraud critics".  Too bad, because click fraud is certainly a topic on the minds of advertisers, agencies and publishers.  One blogger noted, " In these hard times, it's more fun to talk about silly tweets than evil cheats."  Maybe true but "silly tweets" are only wasting time, not advertising dollars...

I did enjoy participating on my panel titled, “Pay-for-Performance: Winning Strategies for Advertisers and Agencies.”   I've posted my presentation below.  Additionally, a video recap can be found here.
[slideshare id=1195434&doc=sesnyc090324-090325080029-phpapp01]

 

Tom Cuthbert

How Botnets Take Control

The problem of botnets is getting worse, not better.  In fact, over 30% of all click fraud comes from botnets, maybe even YOUR computer!  Ever wonder how botnets work?  The BBC has acquired control of 22,000 computers and have been demonstrating how it works.  The videos are easy to understand and  very interesting.

Cyber crime risk exposed
How cyber criminals attack websites
Is your PC doing a hacker's dirty work?

Click fraud is costing advertisers millions of dollars a year.  So how can you protect your computer from becoming a party to the crime?  Again the BBC site has an excellent article with practical steps called, "How to keep your computer secure".  Take time to read it and be sure you are doing your part to reduce click fraud.  

Tom Cuthbert

The Click Quality Council invites you...

Last week I wrote about the Interactive Advertising Bureau's release of the Click Measurement Guidelines.  This document is extremely important for advertisers, agencies and ad providers.  It defines the process that will be used to measure and deliver clicks to advertisers.  The Click Quality Council is hosting a call to discuss the guidelines, describe the process used to develop them and the impact for the industry.

The call will be Wednesday March 18th at 4 PM ET/ 1 PM PT and is open to all members of the online advertising ecosystem.  We will have  George Ivie of the Media Rating Council as our speaker.  George worked directly with the IAB in facilitating discussion and building the guidelines.  Registration is available by clicking here.

Tom Cuthbert

Saying Hello to Rascal Flatts

Several years ago I was in New York City on business staying in Times Square.  I woke up early and wandered toward a Starbucks for my caffeine fix.  I ended up in front of ABC's Good Morning America studio on Broadway.  There was a guy out front trying desparately to get people in the studio which was less than half full.  At that time apparently no one cared that Rascal Flatts was about to perform.  I certainly didn't... in fact I had no clue who they were.  On top of that, even though I am a lifelong Texan, I don't particularly like country music.

Having a full cup of coffee and a little time on my hands I wandered in to listen.  While waiting I remembered that my daughter had mentioned Rascal Flatts before.  I called her at college, woke her up and explained where I was.  She went from a bleary eyed hello to screaming "OMG you are with Rascal Flatts?!"  She was a fan I so I promised to have my picture made with them.  I stayed to listen and did in fact get my picture made (feeling like an idiot!).

Jump ahead to today and I admit, I am a big fan!  I have since gone out of my way to see Rascal Flatts at GMA again when they premiered an album and taken my daughters to a concert.  So needless to say, I am looking forward to the new album coming out April 7th.  They were nice guys, the lyrics are compelling and the music is exceptionally good.  Their new song, "Here Comes Goodbye" is another hit waiting to happen.

So take a listen.  Maybe you'll get hooked like I did!

Tom

The Lens We Look Through

On a recent trip to New York, I was asked by an ad provider executive, “Which side are you on?”  At first I didn’t know what he meant, but he clarified it for me by saying that in the world of advertisers, ad networks, publishers, and ad providers, it’s important to know whose side you’re on.

When I told him that we are on the side of the advertiser he paused, thought about it and then the light bulb went off.  What’s good for the advertiser is good for our entire industry.  100% of the over $24B spent on search advertising comes from advertisers.  They pay the bills for search engines, ad providers, parked domain companies publishers as well as those of us that are working to provide tools to improve traffic quality.

Despite our diverse client base, the lens Click Forensics looks through for every decision we make is that of the advertiser.  While Click Forensics works with a number of advertisers and agencies, we also have many clients that are ad providers.  This list includes search engines, ad networks, publishers and even parked domain companies.  The reason these companies choose to work with us is that we provide insight into the traffic quality they are selling to advertisers.  They are able to use this information to route, block, price and value the traffic to help advertisers get a better return on their ad spend.

Smart sellers look through this lens too.  Companies like Yahoo that asked advertisers how they could improve communication. The result was the cooperative development of the FACTr system enabling advertisers to communicate concerns to Yahoo.  Companies like Lycos, who realized early on that “quality matters” and began working to enhance their quality using traffic insight tools.  And industry organizations including the Click Quality Council, while made of all parts of the ecosystem, is always advertiser focused.

Advertisers drive our industry and that reality will become even clearer in the future as mobile grows more important and display begins to look like search.  We are proud of our involvement and the work of the Click Quality Council.   The CQC is an example of an industry organization that is not dominated by one constituency.  The over 100 members include companies from every corner and every perspective of the eco-system.  They sit around the virtual table as equals, all understanding it is the lens of the advertiser that matters. 

So as the IAB releases the Click Measurement Working Group Guidelines, it is important that they are reviewed through the lens that matters, that of the advertiser.  We should be asking, are these guidelines fair?  Do they have enough substance to improve traffic quality and help ensure advertisers get what they pay for?  Do the guidelines improve transparency and enhance trust between buyers and sellers?

I attended the IAB’s annual conference in Orlando last week and have a clear picture of their lens .  We applaud the IAB’s leadership and the work of the Media Rating Council and task force members who produced a foundational document.  Our hope now is that we can work together to build on this foundation to build trust, enhance transparency and accelerate the growth of online advertising.

Tom Cuthbert

Is Google Watching You?

“Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you”  Kurt Cobain

Data is the driver to growth and profitability for the online advertising community.  No one knows this better than Google.  Every day, they are gathering more and more data on consumers and many consumers are completely unaware of this fact.  While lots of folks are sitting at home shredding mail, cutting up old credit cards and proclaiming that they will “never shop online”, Google sits by quietly watching every move they make online.

USA Today recently featured an article titled, “Google's G1 phone makes it easy to track surfing habits” written by Leslie Cauley.   The article goes into great detail as to the data that Google has (or will have) on consumers.  One key driver to the acquisition of this data is the G1 Mobile phone.

The G1 makes things much easier for Google to watch your every move.  Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy says, “It’s like a walking surveillance device”.  Cell phone and mobile devices are generally not shared; they are just used by one person.  This means that the data collected from that device is highly personalized to that individual and incredibly accurate.

Think about the power of an advertising company (yes, Google is an advertising company) would have knowing who your friends are on Facebook and MySpace, or tracking the videos you watch on Youtube.  Go beyond that and understand that Google would know where you bank, where you shop and even how you are feeling.  By using Gmail, Google Calendar and Docs applications Google sees your contacts, email, documents, instant messages, phone calls, online browsing habits, calendar, downloads, music selections and even your specific location at any given moment.  The GPS enabled smartphone can send location information back to Google servers tracking every move you make… spooky, huh?

Sure there are other location based services like Loopt and Brightkite but they don’t have the ability to tie that information to every other aspect of your life.

So why does Google care about you and me so much?  Easy… money.  Mobile advertising will quickly become “locally relevant”.  This means that if you are strolling through Bryant Park on a warm summer day in New York, an ad for the Jamba Juice across the street may show up on your phone.  Click it and Google makes money.  Mobile advertising today is only about $800M annually.   By 2012 it will swell to $2.2B driven largely by “locally relevant” advertising and targeting based on your interests, connections and habits.

Today Google falls only under their self-imposed privacy guidelines (This from a company not exactly known for its transparency).  In 1999 legislation was passed that allowed consumers an “opt-in” choice for phone and cable companies controlling the use of personal data for commercial purposes.  Trust me when I tell you this will be a hot topic in the months and years to come on Capital Hill.  Consumer privacy is a big deal and something we should all be concerned about.

So if you have a G1 remember the minute you turn it, Google is watching you.  Tracking every move you make and, unlike other consumer data, you can’t see what information has been collected nor is there a way to modify it.  But don’t worry; we can always trust Google to do the right thing… right?  

For information on how Google and others will be using locally relevant data read this excellent article from by BW's Steve Baker and watch the accompanying video.

Google recently joined me and millions others by setting up a Twitter account.  Their very first tweet said, "I'm 01100110 01100101 01100101 01101100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101100 01110101 01100011 01101011 01111001 00001010" binary code meaning "feeling lucky".  Well Google, I'm 01110111 01100001 01110100 01100011 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 :)

Tom  Cuthbert

Obnoxious Facebook Ads

I recently posted a tweet on Twitter complaining about obnoxious and misleading Facebook ads.  You know the one's I am referring to... "Would You Like to Make $5,000 a Month Posting a Link on Google?" or one's from the "Emillionaire Institute" "Get Rich Working from Home for Google".   These companies have nothing to do with Google and Facebook should not be running misleading ads.  According to the Google blog site, they aware of these ads and are apparently doing nothing about it.  I can't imagine that brand infringing and degrading images like this one would not get the attention of a $20B adverting powerhouse.

A recent article from the Sydney Morning Herald stated, "Facebook repeatedly accepted ads for a get-rich-quick scam it apparently knew was defrauding users in a desperate attempt to earn revenue.  Google does not pay people to sit and home and "post links". The article continued, "A spokesman for Google said the search giant's legal team was reviewing the scam sites and would "take appropriate action as necessary".  There are companies that pay people to sit at home and click on ads, hurting advertisers.  But these guys are just plain ripping people off.

The article mentions  that, "People on the RipOffReport.com website said they were charged hundreds of dollars and attempts to obtain a refund were fruitless."

A follow up article asked, "Why can't Facebook shut down the scammers?"  I am going to go out on a limb and guess that Facebook is making money from the ads... c'mon Facebook!  I am a fan and have encouraged lots of folks to join.  Respect your members and  get your act together on this before the negative PR buzz drip to a flood.

Tom

IAB Click Measurement Guidelines

On the first day Click Forensics was formed, January 2nd, 2006, we called for standards to be developed around click measurement.  Our work and our focus has been to ensure advertisers get what they pay for.  There has been a need for standards and guidelines to help ensure this happens.  Today, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) released the highly anticipated Click Measurement Guidelines.  This document is the result of a task force that took form in September of 2006.  Click Forensics was a founding member and along with Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, LookSmart and other members of the IAB, the document is ready for public comment... your comment.

Since the IAB is a publisher driven organization, we have felt a responsibility to advertisers to ensure your voice is heard throughout this process.  During the public comment phase, we want to help encourage and inject advertiser comments into the process.  It is important for you to take time and review the document.  Think about the benefits that it may have to you as a buyer and question aspects that are missing.  All ideas are good ideas and the IAB and our entire task force are eager to get feedback.  You can download a copy of the document and provide comments directly to the IAB here.  You are also welcome to provide feedback to us directly by commenting in the box below.  

[contact-form]

 The Guidelines are an important  foundational step for our industry.  While no one document can solve the problem of click fraud or mitigate invalid traffic, it is encouraging to us to be at this point.  We look forward to continuing to work to represent your voice and contribute toward building standards that enhance the value for online advertisers.  We are grateful to the IAB, the Media Rating Council and all the members of the task force for the hard work put in over the last few years.  Together we are making meaningful progress in building trust and making online advertising more transparent and effective.

Tom Cuthbert
President and Founder

Unleashing the Data Dragon- IAB Conference Update

Right off the bat, you need to know that quality traffic is NOT a commodity.

I am attending the Interactive Advertising Bureau's Ecosystem 2009 conference in Orlando.  There are over 500 attendees at the beautiful Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress hotel and of those, I have found five advertisers.  There is no doubt, nor is the fact hidden, that the IAB is a  publisher driven organization.  But it has struck me just how narrow that view is as I heard Wenda Harris Millard speak last night.  The title of her presentation was titled, "Am I in the Wrong Class? Why Advertising Isn't and Shouldn't Be (Just) Math and Science" .  It could have easily been titled, ‘Too Much Emphasis On Data Is The Problem, Not A Solution’

Wenda is very smart and has obviously been quite successful, but to me, she seems to be missing the obvious.  It is the science aspect of online advertising that differentiates it from traditional media.  Online is much more measurable, has easier to access data that is more accurate and can be enhanced from a performance standpoint by leveraging the data wisely.  Randall Rothenberg, CEO of the IAB, noted, "We need a creative renaissance in interactive advertising, the business has lived under the tyranny of the click for too long"  

The tyranny of the click?  Isn't it the "click" that has driven the growth of online?  While traditional media flails in the wind (or gets blown away completely, think print...) online has lots of upside.  The renaissance we need to better leverage data to improve traffic quality.

I was part of an agency for eight years and understand the value of good creative messaging and branding.  But I deliberately moved into online because of the measurability and accountability it can create.  At Click Forensics, our goal as a company is to enable advertisers to get what they pay for.  That is delivered through transparency, accountability and measurement.  The successful seller of digital media will embrace these ideas and work to demonstrate their commitment to quality.  They will look through the lens of the advertiser to deliver traffic that meets the goals set out in the campaign.  The IAB is doing a great job in developing standards to enhance measurement and we continue our efforts as part of the Click Measurement Working Group.  I applaud their work and am pleased to be a member.

But now is time for us to find better ways to communicate the value of online advertising.  Let's give the people what they want.  Let's prove to them that quality traffic is NOT a commodity.   Instead of trying to "tame the data dragon" we should should work together to unleash the beast.

Tom Cuthbert

The Magic of March Madness

I am a fan of competition.  The idea of pitting one team versus another or better yet, one person against another is both entertaining and healthy.  Competition is good for business, good for our economy and  good for sports.  Life lessons can be learned from winning and losing and competition drives success.

For me, March Madness is the quintessential competition.  It is a pure and simple format that fairly matches teams against in each, generally on neutral sites.  65 teams in a single elimination,  winner take all format with no consolation games.  31 teams get an automatic bid by winning their conference and the remaining teams are selected based on merit.  There is no ridiculous controversy like, "South Dakota State would have won it all if they had just gotten the 65th spot".  These are the best teams in the country... period.

There is no doubt there are problems with college basketball.  Graduation rates are low, gambling is prevalent and players sometimes misbehave.  But generally the sport is clean, the players are committed and the game is fair.

After a season lasting months and a tournament lasting weeks, it all comes down to one game... a true championship game (do you hear me BCS?).  There is something pure and honorable about a format that enables the two teams that have made it through the competition to face each other in one final game.  That... is quintessential competition.  

March Madness is just around the corner.  So bust out your bracket, sit back and enjoy the ride.  Once again this year, it will be a great spectacle of upsets, buzzer beaters and quintessential competition.  And by the way, the odds of getting your bracket perfect are 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 to 1... good luck with that!

Tom

Why I Like Amtrak

OK sure Amtrak only exists because the government props it up.  The subsidy actually comes out to $210 for every 1000 passenger miles.  For those folks who live in a giant state like Texas, the idea of taking the train anywhere is nuts.  However, for people on the east coast, it works brilliantly.  I actually enjoy it get much more done on the train than I would on most flights.

This trip, for example, I flew nonstop to Baltimore for a meeting.  Then, it is a easy 2 1/2 hour train ride on the Acela and poof, you are in midtown Manhattan.  There are three things I like about Amtrak vs flying:

1) No security lines  (Sure it's fun to remove de-rob and wait in long lines but I am willing to sacrifice it to ride a train!)
2) No screaming babies in the seat behind me (I almost always choose the "quiet car")
3) Outlets!  It's hard enough to find a plug at an airport (ie Las Vegas), on the train I have my very own

I have put together this fascinating two minute video of my most recent trip... enjoy :)

Yes, my trip cost the government (meaning me) $41.72.  Despite that, I am glad Amtrak exists and will continue to enjoy it on the east coast.  San Antonio to Lubbock?   Not so much...

Happy travels!

Tom

If I could change just one thing about Google, it would be...

We all love Google but nobody's perfect!  We hear suggestions all the time from advertisers that start, "If I could change just one thing about Google, it would be..."  It was this type of feedback that lead to the Click Quality Council's "Eight Principles to Ensure Click Quality".  We shared this list with Google and Shuman took time to respond with some great feedback.  Last Fall, we released a Report Card, providing an update on how Google and others are doing on the Eight Principles.

So I thought, let's compile a new list!  Send me your thoughts and I will share them back with you and with Google.  To make it easy, just jot your idea, comment or suggestion in the box below.  Thanks!

[contact-form]

Tom Cuthbert

Insight into the Jump in Click Fraud

This morning, Click Forensics released the Click Fraud Index numbers for Q4 2008.  The overall rate jumped to 17.1%.  This means that across our community of advertiser data, we find that one out of every six clicks are invalid and not worth paying for.  There were three factors that drove the increase.

[caption id="attachment_303" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Source: Click Fraud Index"][/caption]

First, the increase lines up with past increases in Q4, somewhat of a seasonal bump.  This year however, was magnified by the economic downturn and a correlating increase in cybercrime.  I wrote about this last week.

Secondly, there was a 14% increase in the botnet rate, surpassing 30% for the first time.  There have been quite a few reports from McAfee, Symantec and others noting a similar trend.  Botnet attacks are becoming more sophisticated and difficult to stop.

Finally, for the first time in awhile, we saw an uptick in click farm activity.  Unfortunately, there lots of sites that pay people to click on ads.  This type of activity is difficult to catch and unfortunately, advertisers lose when this occurs.

While the jump is alarming, there is a growing current of cooperation to address the problem.  At Click Forensics, we continue to work with advertisers, agencies and ad providers to build solutions to ensure advertisers get what they pay for.  

Coverage of the news can be found here:

CNET

WebProNews

MediaPost

TechCrunch

New York Times 

Search Engine Land 

Search Engine Watch 

Tom

A Lesson in Sportsmanship

Without question, one of the greatest coaches in my lifetime has been John Wooden.  With ten championships over a twelve year period, no one would question Coach Wooden is among the best.  Ask any player who played for the "Wizard of Westwood" and you will learn they all learned more about life than about basketball.  It was Wooden who said, "Sports do not build character. They reveal it."

Character has been revealed through sport in a game played in Dallas where Covenant defeated Dallas Academy 100-0 on Jan. 13.  Leading 59-0 at the half, the team continued to shoot three-point shots and press on defense.  Credit goes to Dallas Academy for never giving up.  I was struck by their attitude and desire to improve shown in this video from the Dallas Morning News.

While not a point was scored by the team it's clear to me that there was a point made.  After the fact, the Covenant team players and coaches apologized and offered to forfeit the win.  Lesson learned.  Wooden is right, sports reveal character... in both winning and losing.  The key is learning to apply those lessons to life.

Wooden went on to greatness not because of his knowledge of basketball, but because of his perspective on life.  Let me leave you with John Wooden's Seven Point Creed, given to him by his father Joshua upon his graduation:

• Be true to yourself.


• Make each day your masterpiece.


• Help others.


• Drink deeply from good books.


• Make friendship a fine art.


• Build a shelter against a rainy day.


• Pray for guidance and give thanks for your blessings every day.

All good words to live by.  Thanks coach Wooden for 98 years of leadership.  And congrats to the team at Dallas Academy for reminding us that in life, there are more points to be made off the court than on it.

Tom

Getting an Uptick in a Downturn

It's no secret our county’s economy is slowing and times are getting tough.  While there is great optimism, there is an undercurrent of concern.  In anytime of economic downturn, one unwanted byproduct is that crime increases ("Statistics point to increase in crime").  Unfortunately, this includes cyber crime and specifically, click fraud.

For almost three years now Click Forensics has been tracking click fraud.  While the overall rate somewhat stabilized during 2008, the number of advertisers affected and the dollars lost continue to rise.  As we face more sophisticated attacks in 2009, I wanted to highlight some recent advances in the battle and share some specific steps advertisers can do to ensure they get what they pay for.

Cooperation has been a theme for 2008.  Progress is being made on three fronts by leaders in the industry.  First, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) continues its work on defining guidelines for counting clicks.  Click Forensics continues to take an active role in this important effort and supports it as a good first step.  Secondly, leading search providers, including Google and Yahoo!, have enhanced their products with better tools to manage campaigns and announced traffic quality centers to provide additional resources to advertisers.

The third initiative has been the joint effort of Click Forensics and Yahoo! to build the FACTr process (Fully Automated Click Tracking Reconciliation).  For years, advertisers have been frustrated when they have found invalid activity in their pay per click campaigns.  Now there is a simple, automated process that connects advertisers to the ad providers.  The FACTr system was built by Yahoo! and Click Forensics and launched publicly in July of 2008.  By the fall, other ad providers including LookSmart, Miva and Google were added.

While progress continues, here are specific steps advertisers can take to protect their online investment.  First, advertisers should monitor campaign performance at the most granular level. Click fraud attacks come in spikes of activity.  By watching campaign performance on a daily basis, advertisers can see anomalies and alert the ad provider quickly.  Looking for spikes in clicks, drops in conversion ratios, and higher than normal impression levels are all signs something may be out of line.

Secondly, now is a good time to double check campaign settings.  A large number of unwanted clicks come as a result of campaigns not being set up correctly.  Look at geo-target settings to ensure they match your campaign goals.  Review day part settings to ensure you have optimal ad delivery for delivering quality traffic.

Finally, avoid paying for clicks from low quality traffic sources.  By utilizing the site exclusion functionality made available by ad providers, you can block bad clicks from ever getting to your campaign.  Click Forensics has a process called, Intelligent Exclusion™ that dynamically identifies bad traffic sources and eliminates them from the campaign.  We see a 43.5% decline in the overall invalid rate for advertisers who use this process.  Keeping the money in your pocket is always better than having to go back and ask for a refund!

Like you, we are hopeful that the economy will make a quick recovery.  As it does, we will all benefit.  In the meantime, it’s more important than ever that advertisers are on the lookout for threats to their ad budgets.  You can count on all of us at Click Forensics to continue to work on behalf of the entire industry to bring solutions to the marketplace to ensure advertisers get what they pay for.

Tom